Jessica Zwaan returned to The Modern People Leader for a deep dive on how her PeopleOps as a Product philosophy came to life. We talked about the early days of the framework, writing her book, and the launch of MPL Build — a new collaboration between MPL and Jessica to bring the methodology to more teams.

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🔗Join the MPL Live Session on all-things leave management.

🔗Request a demo of ChartHop.

🔗Download the State of Teams 2025 Report from Atlassian.

🔗Be the first to hear when MPL Build launches.

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(08:12) Where Jessica first discovered PeopleOps as a product in the wild

(10:24) The blog post that changed everything

(12:45) Why the 2020 timing was perfect for this framework

(14:19) Turning the blog into a book — thanks to Lars Schmidt

(18:33) Early examples of building squads and roadmaps

(21:18) Launching a full apprenticeship program in just 12 weeks

(22:46) Did the skeptics show up? And how have attitudes changed?

(25:36) The most surprising feedback from the community

(30:12) How big could this get? Is there a limit to who this works for?

(32:29) Why the U.S. is catching up to Europe in adopting this framework

(34:18) The original MPL mission: reaching 100M employees

(36:12) Announcing MPL Build: our first expert-led program from MPL Academy

(39:51) How this partnership came together and why it’s a perfect match

(42:53) Why Jesse is excited about MPL Academy and Build

(45:29) The power of a complementary team

(47:00) What’s coming next: AMA-style episodes, two paths for learners, and tons of resources

(50:43) One word close

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Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.